Friday, January 25, 2013

Lib Dems rush to disassociate themselves from the MP, but as The Telegraph notes, "Ward's grotesque caricature of Israel and 'the Jews' is all too common on the liberal Left".

(INN) A Liberal Democrat MP in Britain faces expulsion from the party for saying Jews had not learned from the murder of six million in the Holocaust in their treatment of Palestinian Authority Arabs, the Daily Mail reports.

David Ward, MP for Bradford East, wrote on his own website that he was “saddened” that Jews “could within a few years of liberation from the death camps be inflicting atrocities on Palestinians…on a daily basis.”

“Having visited Auschwitz twice – once with my family and once with local schools – I am saddened that the Jews, who suffered unbelievable levels of persecution during the Holocaust, could within a few years of liberation from the death camps be inflicting atrocities on Palestinians in the new State of Israel and continue to do so on a daily basis in the West Bank and Gaza,” Ward wrote.

He later defended his comments in interviews, saying they were a “just a statement of fact”, and adding that “it appears that the suffering by the Jews has not transformed their views on how others should be treated.”

His remarks were made ahead of Holocaust Memorial Day on Sunday, reported the Daily Mail. He has been summoned to a meeting with party whips on Monday, but has insisted he stood by the statement and its timing and claimed it was “regrettable” he had been reprimanded.